


Teethers, pranks, and cool sunglasses

by ditty (Triple_A)



Series: Fast Little Nonsenses [5]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Also Sixty helps take care of Damian because he's a cool guy and thrives on affection, Bad Ex-Boyfriends, Chris's ex fucking sucks ok, Cool uncle dad sixty, M/M, Random Encounters, Slice of Life, even from babies, with a shitty ex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-08-20 18:09:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20232148
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Triple_A/pseuds/ditty
Summary: It was never supposed to become a thing. Never supposed to get past a simple favor here and there, and evolve into something more…domestic? Intimate? Sixty didn’t know.What he did know was that babies were amazing compliment magnets. He’d only been wearing Damian Miller for about twenty minutes since they walked into the grocery store, and already he was getting coos and adulation left and right, from older ladies, jealous couples, etc etc. And he waslovingit.: :Sixty accompanies Chris and Damian at the grocery store, and indirectly meets Chris's shitty ex-boyfriend.





	Teethers, pranks, and cool sunglasses

**Author's Note:**

> i was on some kinda galaxy brain when i wrote this

It was never supposed to become a _thing_. Never supposed to get past a simple favor here and there, and evolve into something more…domestic? Intimate? Sixty didn’t know.

What he did know was that babies were _amazing_ compliment magnets. He’d only been wearing Damian Miller for about twenty minutes since they walked into the grocery store, and already he was getting coos and adulation left and right, from older ladies, jealous couples, etc etc. And he was _loving_ it.

Chris rolls his eyes from beside him, but a grin crawls across his face as he pushes the squeaky cart. “Six, you do know you’re not actually his dad, right?”

Sixty turns, Damien bouncing on his chest in his carrier with a series of giggles. The sunglasses Sixty had given him as a “late birth gift” sit perfectly over his face, matching Sixty’s own sunglasses exactly. “Really?” Sixty says with an exaggerated gasp. “And I bought a ‘Cool Dad Number One’ shirt and everything. How long did you know??”

“Alright, you jokester.” Chris can’t help the chuckle that threatens to escape him. “You’re deceiving all those poor people, now.”

“No, I’ve never told them I _was_ Day’s dad. They just assumed.” Sixty fingerguns, and Chris wishes he had a hand free to snap a picture. It _was_ a photo-worthy image, Sixty finger gunning with Day on his front, both grinning with a lot of teeth and no teeth, respectively. “I rest my case, your honor.”

“Your honor finds you guilty, and sentences you to go get the milk.”

“I believe your honor is not suitable for law practice.”

Chris laughs, shoves Sixty’s shoulder. “Go get the milk, Six. Whole, remember.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t wait up, Cool Dad Number Two.”

* * *

Granted, he takes more time than needed to get the milk. Mostly because he strolls the baby aisle once or twice to find the perfect teether for Day (his old one was rather ratty and gross) and to absorb more praise from unwitting passerby fueling his ego. By the time he nearly reaches the aisle where he knows where Chris is, he looks down at Damian, playing with the packaged teething ring and shaking it, babble coming out of his mouth.

“Hey, Baby Day. Do you wanna play a prank on your pops?” He smirks, and Day looks up at him through the glasses (Sixty, not for the first time and not for the last, pats himself on the back for the very good investment).

“Bah?”

“That’s a yes. Let’s go.”

He sidles to the aisle over, across the shelf from where Chris looks at different variations of canned soup, with full intent on spooking the man once he removed two very enticing options of clam chowder, shushing Damian in anticipation.

But instead of reaching for the cans, which Sixty had carefully calculated and predicted, someone calls Chris’s name.

“Yo! Chris?”

In the crack between shelves, Sixty can see a man approaching-not near enough to get a good read on his face, but he can see a red t-shirt, wavy brown hair. Maybe the same height as Chris, maybe a smidge taller. Chris immediately tenses, but responds to the greeting after only a moment’s pause. “Jace? That you?” He says, and there’s a fake jovialness that makes Sixty’s components shudder unpleasantly. Everywhere he looked, people admired Chris for several things-one being his honesty. But there was nothing real about his smile, at the moment, and something very real in the sudden stiffness in his demeanor.

“Aw, I knew it! Chris, how you been?” Jace seems oblivious to the unease, leaning in to grasp Chris’s shoulder and hand in a hearty handshake, making the other man flinch every so slightly. “Man, I can’t believe it! It’s been, what, three months? Four?”

“…Six months, I think. You left right after Damian turned one.” Chris says somewhat coldly, but civil all the same, and Jace audibly winces. At the sound of his name, Day looks up from the toy with a questioning burble, and Sixty hushes him quietly. “How is…Avery, by the way? Was that his name?”

Jace sighs, and Sixty bends his knees slightly to get a better visual. There’s a rueful smile on his face, and to Sixty’s surprise he looks…much different than what he’d expected. Lines from smiling etched pleasantly across his features, strong cheekbones, cheery brown eyes. A past criminal record of marijuana and underaged drinking, along with electronic cigarette use, to boot. “Come on, Chris, you gotta let that go. ‘Sides, I got dumped.”

“That so?”

“Yup. I’m too ‘arrogant’, apparently. Can you believe it?” He laughs, slings an arm around Chris’s shoulders, and Sixty finds himself overcome with the irrational reconstruction of him rocketing over the shelf to kick the man in the face. “Anyways, how is Day? More importantly, where is the little bugger?”

As Sixty watches, Chris visibly clenches his jaw, his fist already tight and white-knuckled at his side. “Damian is…fine. He’s fine. I left him with his sitter, I just need to. Needed to grab some stuff after work, you know?” He reaches for the shopping cart, the contents inside clattering as he pulls it closer like an anchor. “I should be heading back now, actually, it was nice bumping into you-“

“Hey, wait. Chris-“ And this time Sixty has to wrap an arm around Damian to calm himself, to keep himself from following through with his sudden urges to uppercut this guy to heaven’s front door by bursting through the shelves of product like the Cool-aid Man, when Jace reaches and grabs Chris’s forearm, keeping him from pulling away. “Chris, hey. I’m-I’m sorry.”

It was one of the last things Sixty expected, his predictions more focused on further arrogant banter than anything else. But judging by Chris’s expression, he hadn’t expected it either, going stock still and turning his head like he couldn’t believe it. “Excuse me?”

Jace shuffles, hand in his pocket and with the decency to look mildly ashamed, face flushed and turned slightly away. “I’m glad I ran into you today. I never got to say I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

“God, do I have to spell it out for you? For-“ His jaw works up and down for a moment, as if the words were tangible and uncomfortable in his mouth. “For ditching you, I guess. Leaving you with an infant. That shit’s hard, I shouldn’t have just up-and-left you with a goddamn baby, on top of your work as an officer and all. I can’t imagine how much-how bad it must have been.”

For a moment, Chris is quiet, and for a moment, Sixty suddenly finds himself irrationally terrified that Chris would accept the apology. And that thing must have been what Jace was anticipating too, because at the silent response he continues, more earnestly now. “If you’ll give me another chance-I know this sound cliché, but hold on-I swear, I can handle it. I’ll do my share of taking care of Damian, and I swear, I’ll be good to you. I won’t ever hurt you like that again.” He sounds so honest, and it makes Sixty sicker because he can read the dishonesty clearly through his analyses, dark and peppering the man’s personality like a plague. “Just, come on, baby. Chrissy. Forgive me?”

There’s an inexplicable wrench in Sixty’s pump when Chris turns away, his face obscured an unreadable, and then:

“You really haven’t changed at all, Jace.”

Jace smiles in bewilderment. “What?”

“You’re not even-you’re still thinking that Damian’s just. A inconvenient, unfortunate thing. Like he’s not my son, like he wasn’t supposed to be your son either.” There’s a cold venom in Chris’s voice, one that Sixty had never heard before and sending a shiver down his back. How did the Lieutenant once put it? ‘Someone walking on your grave’.

“I grew the spine to kick down my pride and apologize, didn’t I-“

“But not the brains to figure out what to apologize _for_, apparently!” Chris laughs, and it’s a short and slightly crazed sound. “That ‘goddamn baby’ was supposed to be _our_ son, jackass, not for you to treat like a fancy new toy and then get bored of the moment he starts expressing needs. Don’t apologize for leaving me with a burden, apologize for being the absolute dead weight when it came to actually pull your shit together and _help_ me.”

Something changes. Even as Sixty cheers silently, he can detect the way Jace’s demeanor shifts from lighthearted to something more…angry. Dangerous. “I didn’t want a kid, Chris. You’re the one that jumped at the first opportunity for trouble, you always did when it came to long-term shit like a baby.”

“Jumped? You’re really gonna pin that word on me?” Chris twists his arm out of Jace’s grasp, fixing him with a glare reserved only for the most malicious criminals. “I only made that choice because you agreed to be mature enough for it, because you ‘wanted something special’ with me. And I don’t regret that choice at all, I only regret trusting you enough to hold your own the moment something called on you to actually grow up.”

Jace’s hands flex like he’s about to reach for Chris again, but instead he bares his teeth in a snarl of a grin. “You’re not gonna get anything better than me, Chris. Who have you found who would stick around for you and that kid, huh? Someone willing to stick around for a too-young cop with a baby?”

The words echo something Chris had once admitted to Sixty, a while ago, late at night after a harrowing case, when Damian was asleep and the cop was exhausted, slumping against the android as he was half-supported, half-carried, to bed. _’I’m just a poster-boy for burden, Six.’_ He’d mumbled, partly out of it and voice slurred with sleep. _’No one wants to stick around for a single guy with an infant. No one would think that extra workload would be worth anything.’_ Damian whines quietly, and Sixty lets him take his fingers in little hands to play with, while his other fist clenched on the edge of the shelf and nearly denting it.

But Chris doesn’t recoil, or if he does, not visibly. “You’re still just the same naive college kid, who thinks the world should go his way and drops everything to run when it doesn’t.” He says, calmly. “I’m sorry, Jace, but I have found someone. Someone ten-times your value.”

By now, Jace’s face is nearly purpled with contained anger. “You-“

“Please leave me and Damian alone. I don’t want to ever see you again.” It’s amazing how quickly Chris can recede from a brief burst of anger to this again, cool and controlled and determined and even polite, in a way. “I’m gonna go now. I hope you learn, and I hope you grow, and I hope you find someone who’ll help you do that, just like I found someone to be there for me.”

Sixty can’t help revelling, a little bit-_he said, ‘ten-times your value’!!_-but still he watches, anxious and on edge, until Jace turns with a finally glare and stalks away past the canned goods and into the spice aisle, and out of sight.

And Chris, shortly after, practically falls against the cart, leaning against it heavily. He looks tired, surprised-shocked, even-but there’s a jubilant air underneath it, and he takes deep breaths, turning his head and looking around as he does so.

The prank can wait to another time. Sixty waits a beat, and then walks down the aisle to stand at the opposite end from Chris, behind him. “Hey, Chris,” he calls, and the man jumps and then instantly relaxes, when he sees Sixty. “You need sum’ milk?”

“God, Six, I’m blocking you from the internet if you keep using outdated memes in real life.” He smiles, and to any other person it might’ve concealed the underlying residue of nerves, the fading excitement. He raises a hand to Day, who takes his fingers with a happy squeal. “What took you so long?”

Sixty hesitates, unsure whether to tell the truth about what he heard. _I wasn’t supposed to hear it._

“Yeah, sorry. Met an old fella who was looking for the bathroom, ended up trying to find the bathroom with him for a couple minutes. Then got sidetracked by baby toys.” As if on cue, Damian lifts the teething ring with a vigorous little shake. “I figured he could use a new teether, his old one is-“

“-all ratty, yeah, I know.” Chris sighs, but he looks happier all the same, and he looks at Sixty with a barely-guarded expression that he can’t comprehend. “That’s sweet of you, Sixty. Thank you.”

…And the comment warms him in a way that makes all the other compliments he’d received utterly forgettable.

**Author's Note:**

> it's SHORT and SWEET and a quick wordspew


End file.
